Masaryk T
Masaryk, Tomas Garrigue
ACHIEVEMENTS: One of the two politicians responsible for the formation of the modern republic of Czechoslovakia after World War I.
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 7 March 1850, Hodonin, Moravia (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 14 September 1937, at Lany, Central Bohemia. Aged 87
DISCIPLINE: Philosophy
FIELD: Academics/Politics
LANGUAGE: Czech, English
PARENTS: Josef Masaryk (blacksmith and coachman), Teresie Kropatschek
SIBLINGS: Ludwig ( or Ludvík, a printer), sister (died in infancy), another brother (Martin, died in 1873, of pneumonia)
SPOUSE: Charlotte Garrigue Masarykova (died 1923)
CHILDREN: Alice (nicknamed “Elis,” headed the Czech Red Cross), Herbert (a painter, killed in World War I), Jan Garrigue Masaryk (politician/diplomat), Olga Masarykova Revilliod (married a Swiss physician, had two sons and a daughter), Eleonora (died in infancy)
EDUCATION: University of Vienna, University of Leipzig
MAJOR WORK: Founded the Republic of Czechoslovakia and served as President from its founding in 1918 until his retirement in 1935.
LIFE AND TIMES: After completing his University thesis about the social treatment of suicide, Masaryk (who took his middle name from the family name of his American wife) was appointed a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Vienna in 1879. In 1882 he accepted a post at Charles University in Prague as a professor of philosophy and sociology.
He published the first Czech scientific journal, “The Atheneum,” from 1884-1886. Later, he published another journal entitled “Nase Doba” (“Our Times”).
In 1886, with the help of a Prof. Gebauer, he proved that a pair of supposedly ancient manuscripts that were said to prove that Czech civilization predated German civilization, were in fact forgeries.
The resulting controversy nearly cost him his post at the University. During this time, he used the money he earned as a professor to buy his parents an inn which they ran, granting them freedom from employment by the Emperor. He also bought his brother, Ludwig, a print shop, hoping that he would write essays and articles, which his Ludwig would print.
In 1887 he traveled to Russia, and met Tolstoy*, and between then and 1910, held a number of discussions with the author about the nature of evil, and peoples’ resistance or non-resistance to evil. Masaryk entered politics in 1891 when he was elected to the Hapsburg Parliament, and fought for the rights of Slavic minority groups. He served in the Parliament from 1891 to 1893, and again from 1907 to 1914.
It was while teaching at the University that he met Benes*, one of his philosophy students, in 1904. After the assassination of the Hapsburg heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, it became clear that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was going to war. Masaryk’s political views supporting the independent Slavic peoples against the Empire were well-known.
In 1914, Masaryk and his daughter Olga escaped to Switzerland, and then England, where he became a lecturer in Slavonic History at King’s College, London. Toward the end of 1914, it became clear that France and England were making plans on how to divide Europe between them following their defeat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The plan, called the “Dual Monarchy,” meant the end of hope for an independent Czechoslovakia for the foreseeable future.
Beneš and Masaryk, along with a small group of like-minded Czech nationalists dubbed the “Mafia,” began their four-year struggle for Czech independence. They developed innovative spy tricks, including: codes by which a newspaper advertisement for an apartment for rent in Prague conveyed important political information; use of a microscopic letter carried in a hollow tooth; letters printed on very fine silk so they were nearly transparent; or wearing socks knitted with yarn printed with a dot and dash code that could be read when the socks were unraveled.
In Prague, Masaryk was declared a traitor and sentenced to death in absentia. His oldest daughter, Alice, was taken as a hostage for her father, and spent most of World War I in prison. His oldest son, Herbert, was killed during the war.
His younger son, Jan Garrigue Masaryk*, served in the Austro-Hungarian army on the Austrian front. His youngest daughter, Olga, served as hostess for her father during his campaign for an independent Czechoslovakia.
Masaryk traveled through Europe and the United States between 1914 and 1918. He met President Woodrow Wilson* as part of his campaign to gather support for a sovereign Czechoslovak republic. Before the meeting, Masaryk read all of Wilson’s speeches, and supported his own arguments for Czechoslovak independence with quotes from those speeches.
On 29 June 1918, France became the first European nation to recognize Czechoslovakia as an independent nation. Great Britain followed suit on 9 August 1918, Japan’s Mikado government was next on 1 September 1918, and President Woodrow Wilson recognized the regime headed by Beneš and Masaryk as an ally against the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires on either 9 or 18 October 1918.
On 26 October 1918, Masaryk was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the ceremonial signing of the Czech Declaration of Independence. The signing took place at Independence Hall, and Masaryk sat at a desk and chair that were once owned by John Hancock, author of the American Declaration of Independence.
On 28 October 1918 the signing was repeated in Prague, and Czechoslovakia declared its independence from the Habsburg Empire. Tomáš Masaryk was declared President of the new Republic by acclamation in December 1918.
One of the first questions the new President had to address was about issuing currency and stamps. Bohemia and Moravia had used Austrian stamps, and Slovakia had used Hungarian stamps, and so the country of Czechoslovakia had no equipment or expertise to draw on for producing their own stamps.
Masaryk asked the Czech-born artist Mucha* to design the new Czech stamps in only three days, in order to meet the demands of running a new country. Mucha presented the first sketches on 30 October 1918. The design featured the Hradcany Castle in Prague, the traditional seat of government.
Masaryk did not run the new government with pomp and circumstance. He liked to run the government as much as possible as he used to run his classrooms, with discussions, informally. He was still very much a philosopher.
Masaryk served as President of Czechoslovakia from 1918 until he abdicated due to ill health on 14 December 1935. He named Eduard Beneš his successor, and asked his son, Jan, to assist the new President. A university named after him was founded in 1919 at Brno, Moravia, Czechoslovakia.
The Viennese painter Kokoschka* moved to Prague in 1935 to escape the growing power of the Nazi Party in Austria. In 1936 he painted a portrait of the recently retired Masaryk, and the two remained friends until Masaryk’s death.
ASSESSMENT: One of the major European politicians and diplomats of the early 20th Century. With Eduard Beneš, Masaryk managed to negotiate multiple alliances with European governments and the American government during World War I, resulting in the creation of the modern state of Czechoslovakia in 1918. A Czech national hero, Masaryk served three terms as President, and guided the country through its first decades of existence.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He met Sir Arthur Evans*
ONELINER: Tomas Masaryk, co-founder of Czechoslovakia
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Zeman, Zbynek, The Masaryks: The Making of Czechoslovakia, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1976
Donald A. Lowrie, Donald A., Masaryk: Nation Builder, the Man Who Changed the Map of Europe, The General Board of the Young Men’s Christian Association, published by Association Press, New York, 1930
Howard Louthan, Howard, “Central Europe’s Identity Crisis: Reassessing the Cultural World of Mitteleuropa,” Abstract of speech presented as part of a Panel Conference, “Strategien der Identitätsbildung in der Moderne,” presented Saturday, 22 May 1999, © 1999 Howard Louthan, from the online website www.zeitgeschichte.at/programm